#GetOutOfTheBuilding

Posted by Tendai Charasika on December 7, 2012
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For those of you who don’t know, the annual Lean Startup Conference, which is a congregation of practitioners of the principals that are helping entrepreneurs build better startups, faster, was held in San Francisco, California December 2 – December 4. There was an abundance of top-notch speakers from around the country from diverse sectors, as well as, application workshops, and opportunities to get an “inside” look at some of the growing startups leveraging lean principles, such as AirBNB, Rally, Sharethrough, and Twillio.  

The goal of the lean startup, is to experiment one’s way towards building the “right thing” that customers want and will pay for as quickly as possible. This means that the startup should no longer work in the proverbial “stealth mode” and should be getting out of the building gaining customer feedback as much as possible. This traditionally can be and probably should be a very uncomfortable process, but in the end, the feedback gained provides us valuable insight into whether or not we are truly building something worth pursuing.    

I was honored to speak at the Lean Startup Conference, which included rock stars such as Eric Ries (The Lean Startup & IMVU), Steve Blank (The 4 Steps to the Epiphany), Ash Maurya (Running Lean), Alex Osterwalder (Business Model Generation), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), Drew Houston (Dropbox), and many more. I specifically addressed the issue of #GetOutOfTheBuilding, which inherently means actually getting in front of live, breathing customers for purposes of course correcting or affirming feedback. This “uncomfortable” issue isn’t regulated to just certain groups of people or a class of entrepreneurs, but it is the tying thread of building relationships with potential early adopters and the beginnings of understanding if we truly are not wasting our time. What we risk by not getting out of the building is an opportunity to both pursue our next best idea and to achieve validated learning by listening to our customers.

There were many aspects of my talk that resonated with the global audience that numbered in the tens of thousands – both in person and those connected via livestream, but below are the takeaways that hit home the most based upon in-person feedback, conversations, retweets, and blog postings from the conference. I would encourage you to join the conversation on Twitter at #GetOutOfTheBuilding and take a look at the video from the conference here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-lean-startup-conference-12-3-12 

  1. Don’t Ask Your Uncle…or your mom, dad, brother, sister, boyfriend or girlfriend or anybody that you know who will give you a pat-on-your-back and unintentionally provide you false positive feedback. The reality is that your first version likely won’t look anything like your final version – so #GetOutOfTheBuilding and seek honest feedback from real, potential customers.
  2. Get Uncomfortable. If talking to strangers about something that you are passionate about doesn’t make you a little uncomfortable, then you probably aren’t human. It’s not easy to reveal to the world our beautiful “baby” and become vulnerable while being receptive enough to listen to feedback. Entrepreneurship takes being bold, while balanced with humility and coach-ability.  #GetOutOfTheBuilding and get your new idea or demo in the hands of your potential customers as a way to observe their reaction – don’t worry, the one’s who actually provide you feedback are likely the one’s who care the most and see the greatest potential in the value your product could deliver.
  3. Missed Opportunities:  What we risk by not getting out of the building is a lot of wasted time – wouldn’t you rather know early, where the personal investment isn’t as high, that you are investing all your time into an idea that SUCKS? It is better to learn quickly what works and what doesn’t so that if the idea is not worth persevering through or pivoting that you can move on to your next best idea. What is even more important is what’s gained – the learning associated with understanding what customers want and will pay for as quickly as possible.

#GetOutOfTheBuilding

Stay tuned to my next blog posts which will be about what I actually learned from being immersed within San Francisco and amongst entrepreneurs for the last few days, as well as, how I will make the case that other cities shouldn’t try to be Silicon Valley, but rather Just Do You!

The Proverbial Pivot

Posted by Tendai Charasika on November 25, 2012
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“Building a startup is an exercise in institution building; thus, it necessarily involves management” – eric ries: The Lean Startup

I will be the first one to admit that waiting over twelve months to write a new blog post is embarrassing, but in my own defense, I have always believed that I would only write about those subjects that I am most passionate about and found worthy of sharing with others. I believe my aggregate experience over the last four to five years, most acutely in the last two years, has led me to a point where I just might have topics worth talking about.

If my blog where a lean startup, then you might say that I have spent the last year “learning” and will be “pivoting” (def: a structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy or…blog) away from my original inspiration for the blog, which was strictly focused on customer discovery and understanding. However, while this is extremely vital to entrepreneurship and lean startup practices, I believe I found it to be a little too narrow of a topic considering my day-to-day experiences in the more broadly defined entrepreneurial management space. I have a fundamental hypothesis that I can provide greater value to my fellow entrepreneurs, startups, and entrepreneurial managers, coaches, and mentors by writing about my experiences, application and observation of entrepreneurship-in-action daily as the entrepreneurial director for GLI’s EnterpriseCorp.

At EnterpriseCorp, I coach and work with literally hundreds of entrepreneurs and startup companies at various stages of development, where I can leverage my learnings and share best practices with others. In my role, one of the greatest rewards and skills developed is that of pattern recognition, which is honed through the unfiltered access to hundreds of “case studies” in entrepreneurship seen daily (possibly only investors may see the equivalent amount).

As a result, going forward you can expect to see a lot more content consistently published that focuses on the entrepreneurial management and best practices of early stage startup companies at various stages of development and across a spectrum of sectors. So, thank you for your year-long patience and if you or anyone you know has an interest in the discovery, learning, and practices of the entrepreneurial manager then stay tuned, follow me, and pass the word along to others.

Cheers!

That’s Right…Be Customer Obsessed!

Posted by Tendai Charasika on November 5, 2011
Posted in: Startup. Leave a Comment

I recently was re-reading the TechStars book “do more faster” by David Cohen and Brad Feld, when the chapter “Define Your Culture” by Greg Gottesman of Madrona Venture Group reminded me of the inspiration for The Worm’s-Eye View. Greg outlined in his opinion the most important factors in determining the success of a startup and stated the following elements: Team, Product or Service, Market (inclusive of size, timing, etc) and the right startup culture. Without rehashing the 13 characteristics discussed by Greg, I will simply let his words do the talking by quoting directly from Greg the reasons why startups should innovate from the ground up.

“Customer-obsessed. Great startup cultures are maniacally focused on defining who the customer is, what the customer wants and needs, and what the customer will value enough to pay for now. It starts well before a single line of code is written. These cultures value talking to as many potential customers as possible before a product is conceived. They make customer feedback a key part of the process once the product or service is delivered. Great startup cultures are rarely surprised by customer issues because they are proactive and process-oriented about understanding everything they can about their customers.”

Think about it. Do you really know who your customer is?

 

 

Oh yeah, Prove it!

Posted by Tendai Charasika on August 13, 2011
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Day-in and day-out, I work with entrepreneurs and early-stage startup companies that are seeking a couple of things amongst a host of others, namely customers and seed capital. Essentially, proving one could help garner the other through showcasing early traction for one’s product or service offering. Admittedly, proving early traction is easier-said-than-done, but it is simple. 

There are few things that many early-stage entrepreneurs could do early to win over a potential investor and ensure that they are spending their time wisely by building something of value that the market will pay for.

  1. Before turning any idea into a company, early-stage startups and entrepreneurs should be engaging whom they believe to be their target customer. Direct, face-to-face interviews and even surveys are just a couple of ways that one can begin uncovering whether or not they are solving a true pain for their customers, while refining the product / service offering and target audience.
  2. Build, Test, Iterate. Once it has been determined that there is a problem worth solving and the market is big enough and growing fast enough to warrant entering it, then a minimal viable product (MVP) should be built. The intent of the MVP isn’t to move into a full launch or to communicate a final product, but it’s the opportunity for you to test and test some more with your target audience. It is an opportunity for you to make a little bet and receive feedback, before you possibly place a big bet and lose on an idea that is unproven and unadopted by the market.
  3. Paying for your product is the greatest compliment a customer can give to an early-stage company - it is “putting your money, where your mouth is” for all those people who say they love your product, would buy your product, but take no action to do so. Whether it’s a letter of intent (LOI) or committed paying customers, the beautiful part of early revenue is two-fold. One, you learn your sales & marketing channel, thus developing the sales process for your eventual product launch and two, you help further mitigate risk for any potential investor and yourself.

 

The results of “proving it” are happy, early-stage investors who feel more confident in you as an entrepreneur and your solution, as well as a product that launches and scales more successfully than a solution that did not engage and build in parallel with the target customer.